


everything I didn't know I need

by Doranwen



Series: our fate before us [5]
Category: Push (2009)
Genre: Gen, Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-26
Updated: 2015-08-26
Packaged: 2018-04-17 08:25:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4659600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doranwen/pseuds/Doranwen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the first time in years, Cassie found herself living in a home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	everything I didn't know I need

**Author's Note:**

> Canon beta is, as usual, thedevilchicken. AlterEgon provided helpful corrections in the way of grammar and sentence structure. Title taken from the song Star Gazer by Mysteria.

Cassie wiped her mouth with the napkin and crumpled it into a ball, dropping it next to her plate as she slid out of the booth. Nick held the door open for her, and they emerged onto the busy street, heading towards the nearest bus stop. "We're really should find a way to eat cheaper," said Cassie, mentally adding up the costs of their meals. "Eating out is expensive here."

"Cassie, we have half a million bucks," Nick said with a chuckle. "I think we can afford it."

"That's not the point. It's still a lot of money to eat out all the time."

"Then we'll cook more meals ourselves."

"I ... actually don't know how to cook," Cassie admitted. "I mean, I can follow directions on packages, I've just never made anything that didn't come with a set of directions."

"Finally, something you **don't** know how to do!" Nick laughed.

"Hey, my mom never told anyone to teach me," Cassie pointed out defensively.

"Probably because she knew I would," said Nick with a grin.

Cassie raised her eyebrows at him. " **You** can cook?"

"This coming from the girl who was surprised I could speak Cantonese?"

"You have a point," Cassie said after a few moments.

"I'm not a fancy chef or anything, but basic cooking is one thing I've worked on learning how to do; you save a lot of money that way. Plus the food tastes better," Nick told her. "Of course, we'll have to get some dishes to cook **with** first ..."

* * *

In the end, they got rather a lot of things, Cassie noted. They were reasonably sure Division hadn't figured out Nick was alive yet, and Cassie's skills weren't up to a level that would interest Division anyway. (Nor would Nick let her drink any more alcohol to improve them, which spared her the hangovers, but it still irritated her to no end when he tried to play "dad".) The strangest thing was that for the first time in years, Cassie found herself living in a **home**. There was a sense of the surreal when she realized she was actually picking out sheets for her bed. "You know we're just going to have to leave all of this when Division figures out where we are, right?" she said to Nick when they returned home and unpacked.

"I know, but I'm not going to live in hotels the rest of my life. If we're going to have stuff, we might as well get stuff we like," he said.

Cassie shrugged and pulled the next item out of the bag. "A calendar? Really?"

Nick threw his hands up in the air. "I just like to keep track of it, okay?" His eyes rolled upwards in mild exasperation, but there was a hint of defensiveness in his voice.

Cassie met his eyes. "Okay," she said in a subdued tone.

Nick's face softened in response. "I figured we could use it to plan ahead," he told her. "There's a spot over there where it would be perfect," he said, pointing.

With a nod, Cassie turned and went to put it up. She flipped the pages to November— _go figure, we only get a few months use out of it anyway_ —and found herself frozen in place, staring at the boxes as her fingers made one last brush against the calendar to ensure it would hold.

"What?" Nick asked, walking over next to her.

Cassie pointed a finger at tomorrow's box. "Thanksgiving. One holiday I never could see the point of. What is there to be thankful for when your mom's locked up by Division and you're a kid trying to survive on your own?"

"Or your dad's dead and you're in group homes," Nick added quietly.

Cassie glanced over at him and gently touched one of his hands with hers in a gesture of sympathy. She seemed to startle him slightly, but he smiled down at her, wrapping his hand around hers and giving it a quick squeeze before letting go.

"We do have some things to be thankful for, though. For one, we survived Hong Kong," he pointed out.

Cassie grinned. "With a bunch of money to boot."

"Yeah. And we have each other."

A knot of something warm spread throughout Cassie's body, filling her veins with contentment. She smiled at Nick. "Feel like turkey tomorrow?"

"Sounds delicious."

* * *

December emerged with clouds, cooler weather, and more rain. Cassie was beginning to hate the sight of it. She wasn't about to get herself enrolled in a school ("Nick, I've never been to one yet, and I'm not going to start now—besides, do you **really** think I'd fit in with the kids there?" she said, rolling her eyes), so she spent the day buried in books, with multiple trips to the library each week. The previous places she'd stayed, she spent most of her time dodging sketchy people and Watching events for the owners of shady enterprises, but she'd spent some time each day studying various things, particularly learning the form of Chinese spoken in Hong Kong (thanks to yet another friend of her mother's). She forgot the occasional detail ( _it's **Cantonese**_ , she reminded herself—somehow the older man who had tutored her had not used that name much), but she was otherwise fairly good at mastering the basics, as long as she didn't open her mouth and try to actually **speak** it.

She eyed the spread of books across the table. Two cookbooks (she had to admit, it was nice to be able to make some edible meals now and then), one young adult novel (as much for education in "normalcy" as anything—she couldn't relate to the characters, but it substituted for social education), a book on self-defense (just in case she needed to break someone's hold on her at some point), and a history book ("Really, Nick?" "C'mon, Cassie, educate yourself—you never know when it might be useful"). It should've been plenty to keep her occupied, but there was only so much food they could eat, she really had to wait till Nick came home to try the self-defense moves on him, and it got tiring to stare at the pages of the novel and history book all day. Her visions weren't really that exciting, either; she just got to see Nick at work, the occasional traffic incident on his route home, and the people trying to sell personal care products (it saved her from answering the door, at least). In short, she was utterly **bored**.

"This is ridiculous," Cassie told herself. "There has to be something to work on." She scrutinized the room. Her eyes fell on the small pair of dice lying on the counter where Nick had dropped them that morning. His control had improved somewhat, but he was still very shaky when lifting things unless he was experiencing intense emotions. They'd managed to change things in Hong Kong without really working on his powers, but she wouldn't bet on that luck holding forever. There wasn't much she could do about improving her Watching except for just trying to see various people's futures (her mom was always locked up, and Kira didn't seem to affect anything big), but Nick's power was different. Cassie started to plot, grinning more as she went.

Two hours later, Nick walked in the door and let out a "What the hell?" as he stared at the assortment of objects littering the various surfaces.

"It's for you to practice with," Cassie said as she walked into the room and plunked a pair of shoes onto the chair.

"Practice?" Nick just stared at her in confusion.

"Yeah, you know, so your power isn't so lame."

"Hey, I flattened a bunch of guys in Hong Kong with it."

"And your gun's **still** shaky any time you try to keep it in the air." Cassie gave him a Look.

Nick shook his head, a hint of a grin peeking through. "On one condition," he declared, "you have to practice self-defense."

"I'm already going through the stuff in that book," Cassie protested, pointing to the pile of library books.

"Then you need to take a class. A good one."

Cassie scowled. A class meant she had to be somewhere at a particular time. "I get to pick which class, then."

Nick narrowed his eyes at her for a moment, then relaxed his expression. "All right. Now, explain to me exactly how you want me to practice with all this?" His hand made a sweep in the air in the general direction of the table, which was covered with everything from silverware to small candles.

"They're for control. See, if you can handle moving one item without shaking it all over the place, then try adding a second, and a third, and so on. The more you can handle, the better your control will be," Cassie asserted.

Nick just lifted his eyebrows at her. "Really? Since when did you know so much about Moving?"

Cassie raised her eyes skyward and sighed. "It's obvious! Just try it. It's not like you have anything to lose."

"Other than destroying a few candles and dumping salt on the floor?"

She waved a hand dismissively. "Not a big deal. Now try it!"

"Can I at least eat something first?" Nick asked her.

"Oh. Well, yeah."

One meal later, and Cassie was watching a circle of objects in the air. At first Nick could only manage two items before dropping one, but managed to get the hang of three before he decided it was time to head to bed. Cassie decided her experiment design was going to be a success, despite the cursing that occurred when the salt shaker inevitably tipped over. She was still grinning as she crawled into bed that evening.

* * *

"Krav Maga." Nick shook his head in disbelief. "You want to learn Krav Maga."

"Yeah," Cassie said. "If I can't stop bullets with my power, I might as well learn how to avoid them."

Nick gave her a skeptical look. "If you're sure . . ."

"Absolutely." Cassie was not going to waver on this one. The class met at a reasonable time in the afternoon, and the skills it would teach were a lot more practical than the general "fitness and self-control" the rest seemed to promote. "As you pointed out once, the only defense I have with my power is avoidance. I'd like to not be so vulnerable."

Nick met her eyes and dipped his head in acknowledgment. "Fair enough." He followed her into the gym.

"Oh, by the way," Cassie whispered, "I'm going to pretend I don't talk much."

Nick blinked. "Well, that's going to take a lot of pretending."

"Shut up." Cassie glared at him. "I have a good reason; if I act normally, the kids will be asking me what school I attend and I'm not going there. So tell the guy I'm really quiet and shy."

"Along with being small because you were sick as a kid?"

"Exactly." It was her standard excuse; the IDs they'd gotten said Cassie (aka Michelle) was 16, an age everyone found hard to buy. ("Cassie, you look like you're 12." "I do not!") They had taken to repeating that everyone thought she looked small for her age, and that it was probably due to being sick a lot as a kid. People tended to accept that and move on, thankfully.

"Can I help you?" asked the young man at the front desk. Cassie tuned his and Nick's conversation out, playing shy as she scanned the area. A bit more wide-eyed and it should fool him well enough.

"So you want to learn Krav Maga?" the man asked, turning to Cassie. She nodded. "You're a bit small for your age; are you sure you're 16?" His look clearly showed he didn't believe her. She nodded more vigorously.

"She was sick a lot when she was younger; the doctor says she's fine now, but she's behind on her growth a bit," Nick explained.

Cassie was relieved when the man nodded and presented the paperwork. Nick was a pretty good liar, but it was hard to know how readily people would swallow what was handed to them. At least most people were rather gullible.

"The class for your age starts tomorrow, actually, so you're just in time. We'll see you then!"

Cassie couldn't help but grin as they walked out the doors.

"Happy now?" Nick asked.

"Yup."

Nick snorted. "We'll see how long that mood lasts when you're sore and tired."

Cassie didn't bother to dignify that comment with a response.

* * *

The next few weeks seemed to speed up a bit. Cassie stretched and did various exercises in between studying her books (her teacher said she was coming along fast), she prepared everything she could ahead of time before cooking dinner (which was increasingly edible and frequently delicious), and they took up jogging, despite the miserable weather. ("We need conditioning, Nick," she pointed out, "so we're even faster and won't tire so easily.") Nick graduated to seven or eight objects circling mid-air around him, and rarely spilled the salt now. ("Now try only Moving the utensils when eating; don't use your hands," she told Nick. "You're insane," he told her. Cassie only grinned.) She even managed to find a dentist who would make the necessary adjustments on her braces under the table. ("How **did** you manage to get braces in the first place?" Nick asked her with obvious puzzlement. "Struck a bargain with this guy I knew; I'd give him the numbers to play the lottery and he'd give me a cut," Cassie told him in her most 'isn't-that-obvious' tone.)

She had managed to tune out the Christmas trappings as usual; she stayed in the flat most of the time anyway, and kept the radio on talk-only stations. But one day Nick decided to convince her to go shopping. "What for?" Cassie asked. "We've already got everything we need."

"I know, but they've got a new game store that I want to check out." Nick gave her an exaggerated pout. "Please?"

Cassie couldn't help but grin as she looked away. "All right, let's go," she said with a sigh.

The shops were absolutely crowded. Cassie was reminded of Hong Kong as she dodged people everywhere. By this point they were good at synchronizing: Cassie took long steps and Nick slowed his stride slightly to accommodate. But in the mall, they didn't even need to do that—it was so crowded that she couldn't take two long steps without bumping into someone. At a couple points Nick had to steer her with a hand on her shoulder so they wouldn't get separated by the crush. "Ugh, I think everyone decided to go shop today," she said to Nick.

He chuckled. "Yeah, it's a bit packed. I'm going to get one thing at the store and then maybe we can go sightseeing for the fun of it."

Cassie raised her eyebrows. "Sightseeing? Really?"

"What's wrong with sightseeing?"

She let out a sigh. "Nothing. Just—since when are you into sightseeing?"

Nick shrugged. "I can enjoy trying new things once in a while, can't I?"

Cassie rolled her eyes. "OK, so we'll go sightseeing."

Game purchased, and they hopped on the bus again. ("What did you buy another deck of cards for?" "This one's for you, so you can practice Seeing cards." "You are really weird, you know that?" Nick only chuckled in response.) It was dark by the time they got off, but the streets were well-lit. "I think the National Gallery is over that way," Nick said, pointing down the street to where they could catch glimpse of a building with bright lights on it.

They meandered down the street until they came to a clearing ("The map says it's Trafalgar Square"), where Cassie abruptly stopped.

"What is it?" Nick asked, but followed her gaze to the large Christmas tree adorning the square.

She was silent for a minute. "The last Christmas I ever celebrated, my mom got a tree for us. I remember I loved the lights."

"How old were you?" Nick's voice was soft.

"Six." Cassie swallowed hard, blinking. A hand rested on her right shoulder; she reached up with her left hand and covered it. "Do you hate Christmas too?" she whispered.

"Every damn time," Nick answered quietly.

Her hand gripped his where it lay on her shoulder, giving a slight squeeze before letting go and turning to walk on.

* * *

"Cassie!"

Cassie groaned. She was having a **nice** dream, for once; why did she have to be woken up? Something about her mom and a beach . . .

"Cassie, pancakes are ready!" called Nick from the kitchen.

She resolutely did not open her eyes, sighing as the beach faded from her mind. "You made pancakes?" she called back to him.

"Hey, no skepticism here. I might not have had as much practice cooking as you have in the last month, but I can still make a mean batch of pancakes. And these are hot. Better eat 'em before they cool down."

Cassie groaned again as she dragged herself upright. She shivered and grabbed her gown off the chair to drape around herself; London was **cold** in the morning. She stumbled into the kitchen, eyes half-cracked and hair mussed. She squinted at Nick.

He stood at the stove, flipping the last pancake onto a steaming stack which he moved to the table as soon as he'd turned off the stove. "Have a pancake," he offered.

Cassie slumped into her chair, finally registering that there was something sitting across her plate. It was wrapped in red-and-green striped paper—a present. A diagonal line across it read "To Cassie"; the line underneath that said "From Nick", all in his familiar scrawl. The day finally registered in her mind as the cobwebs started to clear. "I forgot what day it was . . . I didn't know we were doing presents; I didn't think to get you anything." Cassie looked at Nick a little helplessly.

"That's OK; you just have to promise to use this," he said with a grin, but added in the middle of Cassie's 'OK', "You might want to look at that first."

She ripped off the paper to reveal a book. The cover showed various faces of people and a dog—and the title 'The Big Book of Drawing Secrets'.

Nick grinned at her instantly-narrowed expression. "Hey, you promised," he argued before she could open her mouth.

Cassie had to grin back as she got out of her chair and walked over to Nick's chair. "Thanks, Nick," she told him, leaning over and giving him a quick hug.

Once Nick had left for work ("You have to work Christmas?" "Hey, when you work illegally, you get all the shifts no one else wants," Nick pointed out), Cassie settled in with the book—and pencil and paper. By the time he returned that evening, she had several sheets covered with various attempts at rendering scenes, some more legible than others. "I'm not really that good yet," she said. "I'm going to wait till I am to give you your present; I know just the picture I want to draw."

Nick smiled. "I'll be looking forward to that."

Cassie smiled back, a smile that lasted until she crawled into bed a little later. For the first time in years, she didn't feel like crying Christmas night. The corners of her mouth were still turned upwards as she slipped into slumber.


End file.
